From: Jay "Avatar" Piette (avatar42@erols.com)
...And then a blue moongate appeared... Out of it stepped a man that was
destined, along with his friends, to take over this thing called the Internet.
Since he last left Drag/NET, the Avatar had no need for computers in Britannia,
but still he used them... Knowing that someday the call would come again. The
call to action. The call that led to the defeat of Sadamm Hussein... The call
to RULE THE WORLD!!!
From: Arthur "Back Slash" Levesque (bs@boog.org)
The Avatar called out to his former comrades across this almost magical
global communications medium called the Internet...
Bemused, the man known once as Backslash noted the message. Suddenly, his
office seemed less real, seemed to fade around him... The message, the NAME,
seemed to ring long-forgotten bells in Backslash's memory... Of the times
suppressed, the times forgotten, when he returned to the mundane world. And
then reality reasserted itself; Arthur was sitting in his office where he worked
for a government contractor outside of Washington DC. The moment passed, and
Arthur deleted the message along with several give-rich-quick schemes and porno
web site ads which also cluttered his mailbox. He moved on to the next message,
and returned to work. Later, he would not recall ever having read the
message...
From: Jim "GWIII" Bannon (gwiii@tiac.net)
...The comatose body of the GWIIISter sleeps. After the "incident" with
Janet, his eyes vacant of all life. As a gift to his old friend, Backslash had
long ago hooked GWIII up to a computer with experimental wetware. GWIII's mind
flourished on the net and GWIII knew of the Avatars call before it was a
finished electronic bleep of Email. Without a glimmer of hope in his eye,
GWIII's body, at last, smiles.
{to be on the move again} thinks GWIII {that is the ticket, no more lying
around all day thinking about taking over this or that, but to actual action.
Ah how I miss it.} GWIII's Cybronic connections start humming along as he
designs an object of indispensable use to his comrades.
In the room Surrounding GWIII, Doctors and nurses are suprised to see the
long dormant face of GWIII Smile.
From: Arthur "Back Slash" Levesque (bs@boog.org)
The Avatar waited, but received no answer to his summons. What had
happened to his companions? What should he do now?
Arthur continued his work on a new way of inventorying real property for
the Army. As he typed rapidly, unbelievably rapidly considering he still used
only two fingers, his code filled the screen. He was completely unaware that
every character he typed appeared on another screen just a few miles away...
"He's still working on schedule, and none of his personal habits appear to
have deviated in the last week since he received that message from the Avatar."
The speaker wore a black suit and black glasses, even though he was in a
darkened room in the basement of an unremarkable building just outside of
Washington DC. "By all accounts, he has already forgotten the letter; and our
conditioning is holding. His former memories and personality are completely
dormant."
"Very good," said another man, who by his tone could be easily identified
as the first man's superior. "Keep watch on him. If his true personality shows
any signs of awakening, kill him. But, if he is contacted by any of his former
associates, try to capture them alive. They may lead us to the others; and I
won't rest until they're all rounded up and taken care of."
Unlike the Avatar, who has just returned to this plane of being; and
Backslash, who has no recollection of his former D00Dness; GWIII has tried to
keep track of his former comrades... It wasn't easy, as they deliberately made
themselves scarce to avoid Big Brother's attention, and a few slipped even
through GWIII's cyber fingers, but GWIII still could try to round up a few of
them. Odd that they hadn't already answered the Avatar's summons, though...
From: Jim "GWIII" Bannon (gwiii@tiac.net)
...As Backslash was being watched, GWIII monitored both sides of the
conversation through the Cybernetic Highway that was a gift from Backslash.
{Yes, it gives me freedom, but at what cost?} GWIII wondered as he looked at the
files of Backslash's programming. He fiddled with a little calculator that he
always kept handy in his cyberhideout. {Hum, interesting...} With that the
spirit that inhabits the mind of GWIII races out across the Galactic Web to
smite Avatar with a huge "We'll Do IT" sticker.
From: Arthur "Back Slash" Levesque (bs@boog.org)
Of course, while the Avatar was admiring the great big "We'll Do It"
sticker that the GWIIIster affixed to his forehead, he didn't notice the "Get On
With It" sticker holding up a "Kick Me" sign on the Avatar's 12th-century
keister...
From: Jay "Avatar" Piette (avatar42@erols.com)
The Avatar roamed the streets of Washington, DC. He felt kind of weird.
Everything was different than he remembered. Severe disorientation set in. The
buildings were much taller, the weather was much warmer, the cabs were more
checkered... and the women were more voluptous! He knew not why he was here.
He started running. He had just had a memory flash and he wanted to get away
from it. The flash seemed to be a single word... It began with a... ummm...
Z... he thinks. Yes... suddenly as the Avatar ran (he THOUGHT he was under the
influence of a Speed spell) he tripped on a homeless person and suddenly the
word ZORK came to his head. This rang a familiar bell... YES! He must contact
Zork and try to make sense of all of this. The Avatar headed to where his
instincts told him was home... what he only knew as "The 14th floor"...
Quickly, he ran to the telephone... He then realized that he should not, in
fact, know what a telephone is, but it seemed like the thing to run to. The
Avatar reached for the phone to call the person only known to him by name. As
he reached for the receiver [Although the Avatar would not know that this part
of a telephone was indeed called a receiver, it makes the story flow a bit
better at this particular point. -ed.] the phone made a loud sound. The Avatar
picked up the receiver and said "Yes?"
"Hello," said the voice. "I am Sadaam Hussein... And I have a job for
you."
From: Arthur "Back Slash" Levesque (bs@boog.org)
Arthur (The Freak Formerly Known As Back Slash) walked through Washington
DC. The cherry blossoms were in bloom and the always made the city beautiful by
covering the bums and corpses in aromatic pink splendor. He froze as he saw a
familiar face in the distance. "Hey, Avatar!" he tried to yell, before the
conditioning locked down. He turned away and admired the pretty flowers.
The sniper put down his binoculars. He was on top of a building one block
away. He took off his black ski mask and smiled. "As long as Arthur stays
brainwashed and under my control," Don Messier laughed, "they'll NEVER drag me
into THIS story!"
"You're still alive?" Avatar asked Saddam. Then he thought again. "Wait a
minute... We were all killed! How did we get our lives back?"
{Silly person} GWIII thought, in the secret language he used for thinking
things to himself, {this is the Internet. Who needs a life?} GWIII floated
through the wall and scared a flock of pigeons, the only species on Earth with
naturally-occurring telepathy.
"So, what's that job?" Avatar continued...
From: Jay "Avatar" Piette (avatar42@erols.com)
...and thus did Tio appear, spinning slowly to a stop at the foot of the
d00ds, pale in demeanor and mumbling about the bloody peasants. The Avatar was
still walking the the street of DC kind of confused as to what the hell was
going on... he had received a call from Hussein who simply said "Your ULTIMAte
goal in this existance is about to come to fruition."
Then, as he picked up the latest issue of "DC Computer User," a word
rang though his head...
SHEEP.
SHEEP.
He shrugged it off, assuming it was just a bad remnant of the drugs he had
taken while in college. He was wrong. Very, very wrong.
The Avatar went to work at Animal Planet (call your local cable company
for availability) like he did every day of the week. When he got there he had
to review several programs, as usual... The first program was "Sheep in the
Pacific Northwest" -- an especially boring documentary. The second was "Sheep:
America's Greatest Natural Resource" -- this sucked too.
The third was titled "Sheep of Rhode Island." The sights were horrible.
He was shocked and so were The Avatar's co-workers at the scenes in this
docu-drama... About 30 minutes and 42 seconds into the film, it centered in
Northern RI... The Avatar passed out.
His last words were "Send me back... Must go to the beginning."
A co-worker of the Avatar knew this meant something, as she remembered his
ramblings about a small group he knew from northern RI... She took it upon
herself to dump The Avatar on a Southwest Airlines plane (60 dollars both
ways!!) to TF Green airport...